Key clues from Lindsay Clancy’s phone have suddenly become the focus of the trial — and her search terms are gradually revealing unanswered mysteries
TWO familiar expert witnesses from the blockbuster Karen Read case resurfaced in Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial, including the man tasked with decoding crucial phone evidence in both cases.
Digital forensics specialist Ian Whiffin and former chief medical examiner Dr. Elizabeth Laposata each took the stand during Clancy’s five-week trial after previously appearing before jurors in Read’s courtroom battle.
Defendant Lindsay Clancy watches the jury as Judge William Sullivan addresses them at the start of the day in court during the Lindsay Clancy murder trial in Plymouth Superior Court on August 25.Credit: AP
Karen Read watches as jurors are seated in court to continue with deliberations at the trial of Read at Norfolk Superior Court on June 28, 2024Credit: AP
In Plymouth, Massachusetts, jurors weigh whether Clancy, 36, was criminally responsible when she killed her three young children at the family’s Duxbury home on January 24, 2023.
Whiffin, a Cellebrite digital forensics expert, testified for prosecutors and became the Commonwealth’s final witness before it rested its case.
Laposata appeared for the defense and examined the devastating injuries Clancy suffered when she plunged from a second-story window after killing her children.
Both had already become familiar faces to followers of Karen Read’s trials.
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Whiffin actually testified in both Read’s 2024 trial and her 2025 retrial, while Laposata appeared as a defense expert in the retrial.
Phone Clues
The strongest connection between the two high-profile Massachusetts cases came through their digital evidence.
Whiffin examined information extracted from Clancy’s iPhone and Apple devices as prosecutors tried to reconstruct her movements and state of mind before the killings.
Jurors heard about internet searches concerning medication, suicidal thoughts and psychosis.
Clancy searched “ketamine for suicidal ideation” on January 18, 2023, and looked up “symptoms of postpartum psychosis” and “psychosis symptoms” the following day, according to testimony about her phone data.
Whiffin also walked jurors through Apple Health information that prosecutors used to build a timeline of movement inside the Clancy home.
The data showed the phone registering a climb of two flights of stairs between about 5.33 pm and 5.38 pm on January 24, although Whiffin cautioned that Apple groups activity into time windows and does not necessarily show how long the climb itself took.
The evidence became important as prosecutors argued Clancy deliberately sent her husband Patrick out to pick up dinner before killing five-year-old Cora, three-year-old Dawson and eight-month-old Callan.
Dr. Elizabeth Laposata testifies during the murder retrial of Karen Read in Norfolk Superior Court on June 9, 2025Credit: Getty
Ian Whiffin of Cellebrite testifies on the stand during Lindsay Clancy’s murder trial at Plymouth Superior Court on August 17Credit: AP
Her defense maintains she was suffering from postpartum psychosis and heard a male voice commanding her to kill the children and herself.
But years before examining Clancy’s digital trail, Whiffin had been pulled into another Massachusetts murder case where a cellphone became one of the most fiercely disputed pieces of evidence.
‘Hos Long’
In Read’s case, the focus is partly on witness Jennifer McCabe’s now infamous Google Search, “how long to die in cold.”
Read’s lawyers argued data showed McCabe searched the phrase at 2.27 am on January 29, 2022, hours before Boston cop John O’Keefe was discovered unconscious in the snow.
Prosecutors said McCabe searched after O’Keefe was found, at Read’s request.
Whiffin testified in Read’s first trial that he had “no doubt” the two hypothermia-related searches were actually carried out at about 6.23 am and 6.24 am.
He explained that the 2.27 am time related to when the Safari tab later used for the search had originally been opened.
The issue returned when Read was tried for a second time in 2025.
Whiffin again analyzed McCabe’s cellphone data while also discussing information from O’Keefe’s phone, including its location, movement and temperature.
On cross-examination, Read’s attorneys pressed him over another forensic program that continued to show the 2.27 am timestamp and questioned him about the state of the data.
Dr. Elizabeth LaPosata describes the strangulation to Lindsay Clancy’s children via a Zoom call on August 18, 2026Credit: Reuters
Karen Read greets her supporters after she is acquitted on many of the charges against her on June 18 2025Credit: Getty
Read’s defense claimed O’Keefe had been attacked inside a Canton home and that she was framed, while prosecutors alleged she struck her boyfriend with her Lexus SUV and left him outside.
At her 2025 retrial, she was acquitted of second-degree murder, manslaughter and leaving the scene, while being convicted of operating under the influence.
Same Pathologist
Laposata provided another striking link between the Read and Clancy cases.
The former Rhode Island chief medical examiner was called by Read’s defense in 2025 to examine O’Keefe’s injuries.
She told jurors his fatal head injuries were consistent with him falling backward onto a surface with a ridge rather than being struck by Read’s SUV.
Laposata also testified that injuries to O’Keefe’s arm were consistent with an animal.
Judge Beverly Cannone allowed her to discuss an animal injury but prevented her from specifically telling jurors it had been caused by a dog.
A year later, Laposata was back on the witness stand, this time appearing by Zoom for Clancy’s defense.
Laposata was asked to explain what happened to Clancy’s body during her apparent suicide attempt.
Laposata testified that Clancy went head-first from the second-story bedroom window and fell roughly 13 feet onto frozen ground.
“What she got from that is what we call a characteristic burst fracture or a Jefferson fracture,” Laposata told the court.
She compared it to an injury suffered when someone dives into a swimming pool and strikes their head on the bottom.
Laposata also pointed to cuts on Clancy’s wrists, telling jurors there were “numerous attempts at cutting the skin, which we call hesitation marks, which are a classic finding in suicide attempts.”
Her testimony helped the defense push back against prosecutors’ questions about the circumstances and severity of Clancy’s attempt to take her own life.
But prosecutor Jennifer Sprague challenged Laposata on how Clancy could have landed head-first with such force without suffering a skull fracture or other obvious external injuries to her head.
“You’re saying she fell head first from 13 feet onto hard frozen ground and had no visible injuries to the exterior of her head?” Sprague asked.
“Yes,” Laposata replied.
The two repeat witnesses are another connection between trials that have each gripped Massachusetts and attracted intense crowds and online debate.
The U.S. Sun previously revealed how some of the activism surrounding Clancy has drawn comparisons to the huge public movement that developed around Read.
Clancy has admitted killing her children, but her lawyers argue she should be found not criminally responsible because she was psychotic at the time.
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Prosecutors acknowledge she was mentally ill but maintain she understood right from wrong and deliberately killed Cora, Dawson and Callan.
The jury is now deliberating after hearing more than 80 witnesses and hundreds of exhibits during the marathon trial.
SOURCE: THE SUN
https://www.the-sun.com/news/16927436/lindsay-clancy-witnesses-karen-read-trial-phones-role/
